


Love in a Ball-Pit

by popatochisp



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 07:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16990605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popatochisp/pseuds/popatochisp
Summary: You find a skeleton at the bottom of a ball-pit.You don't have the energy to deal with this kind of thing today...Maybe you'll just pretend he's not there.





	Love in a Ball-Pit

The only thing worse than working at a children’s play-place all day was being tagged to stay late to clean it up, and today you’d drawn the short straw.

You’d spent the last hour and a half scrubbing the bathrooms, wiping down greasy tables, and mopping up kiddie-puke that you weren’t even being paid extra to handle.

At least nobody was around to hear you cussing up a storm about how much you hated this place and this job and your manager…or so you thought, until you started emptying the ball-pit.

Three or four plastic-rainbow-ball-layers deep, you stumble upon a skeleton.

Your first, split-second thought is,  _‘Oh my god, this is a horror movie, this is how I die,’_  but it doesn’t last long.

It couldn’t  _possibly_  when the skeleton in question was wearing an old blue hoodie and snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

… _Heh. ‘Wake the dead.’_

You’re not really sure what the protocol is on strange monsters on the premises after hours. You’re also not really sure you  _care_  after your brutal day listening to screaming children and their screaming, entitled parents who seemed convinced that everything in the world was your fault.

With the true nihilism of any overworked, underpaid customer service employee, you decide to just clean around the guy.

You spend another couple minutes sucking up the balls before he actually snorts and wakes up from the shifting. You feel his…eyes? Sockets? On you but pointedly don’t engage, focusing on your task.

He looks like a grown (if kinda short) dude, he can find his own way out.

“s’up.”

Or not.

“Not much,” you shrug. “S’up with you?”

The skeleton stretches, somehow, you have no idea how that works. “mmm, just nappin’ in the ball-pit.”

“You do you, buddy.”

“sans,” he says. “sans the skeleton. y’seem pretty chill about this.”

You introduce yourself shortly. “Should I not be?”

Sans considers it. “the human who found me in the sandbox that one time was pretty freaked.”

That startles a laugh out of you. “Why were you sleeping in a  _sandbox_?”

“i sleep everywhere,” he grins. “m’real good at it.”

You eye the hard, plastic balls you’re both surrounded by, one of the most uncomfortable places you can imagine. “Clearly.”

“heheheh…so what’s your story? y’work here or somethin’?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Gotta clean the cesspool or I’ll get written up.” You scoff, angrily vacuuming up more balls. “Not even getting  _overtime_  for this…”

“psssh, that’s crap,” Sans says. “guess that explains the pg-13 language i was hearin’…why d’you work here, anyhow?”

“………”

God, what a  _great_  question.

You had no idea: between your shitty manager and your lazy coworkers taking advantage of you all the time, you  _hated_  this place. With the added ‘bonus’ of your loud and spoiled clientele, you’d been miserable here from the get-go.

Maybe it was time for a change.

“Y’know,” you say out loud, “I don’t think I should.”

You shut off the ball-vacuum and toss the nozzle aside. You’re being impulsive and you know it, but suddenly, you can’t think of anything worse than having to keep working this job and being  _done_ with it is so liberating.

You feel utterly carefree,  _almost_  as carefree as this skeleton lounging in the ball-pit after hours, totally unconcerned about being ditched by whatever friends and family he must’ve come here with.

“Hey,” you say to Sans. “Mind if I join you?”

Sans grins up at you, waving his arm in a broad, welcoming fashion. “mi ball-pit es su ball-pit.”

You snicker and flop down into the colorful sea of spheres with a hollow, plastic clatter.

“Yeeeep,” you say after a moment. “Just as I suspected.”

“what?”

“It’s  _really_  uncomfortable in here.”

“heheheheheheh…told’ja i was good at sleepin’.”

“That you did.” You shift a little, but it’s still just as awkward and moderately painful as before. “Oh well, last time I’m gonna be here, anyway.”

For the first time, Sans sits up, looking over at you. “hey,” he says, “feel free to say no to this, but uh…you wanna take this someplace else?”

“…Like where?”

“i know a pretty sweet burger joint ‘round here. ya’ hungry?”

Stars,  _yes_. You’d been forced to skip your lunch break today, sustaining yourself on nibbles of disgusting, leftover pizza crusts like a scavenger.

“I could go for a burger,” you admit. “As long as you’re paying, ‘cause I’m unemployed now, I guess.”

Sans’ grin is sly. “you’re in luck,” he winks. “i got a tab open there, i never pay. you in?”

You can’t tell if you’re still just riding the high of walking out on the worst job you’ve ever had, or if this skeleton is actually, weirdly kind of…charming.

Can’t hurt to find out,  _especially_  if free food is involved.

“Yeah,” you decide, “yeah, I’m in.”

“let’s go, then, i know a pretty quick shortcut.”

Sans holds a hand out to you and you take it.

Of all the things you’ve found at the bottom of a ball-pit, you think this skeleton is the best one so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting some drabbles of mine separately just because! Originally from my collection, Bag of Bones, where this and the rest of my drabbles so far can be found.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


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